Application and Experimental Substantiation of the Radioecological Model for Prediction in Behavior ⁹⁰Sr in...

The radioactive fission product ⁹⁰Sr has a sufficient half-life (28.8 years) to be detected long after its appearance in the environment. After its uptake into the soil-edible plant system, it enters the food chain and represents a potential source of contamination that threatens human health. Due to these facts, tracking the distribution of the artificial radionuclide ⁹⁰Sr in the soil-edible plant system is a subject of intense research. The tracking of the ⁹⁰Sr radionuclide distribution in the soil profile, as well as in the crops on the long-term experimental fields was carried out using beta radiation spectrometry. The radiochemical analytical method was used to analyze the ⁹⁰Sr content in cultivated soil and crops. The conducted study focused on the experimental substantiation of the developed model for predicting the behavior of ⁹⁰Sr in the cultivated soil-crop system. The results of using the applied radioecological model for the transfer of ⁹⁰Sr from the soil to the above-ground part of crops showed a relatively good agreement with the experimentally determined values of the soil-crop transfer factor, which indicates that the used model can be successfully applied for the prediction of the behavior of ⁹⁰Sr in the soil-soil solution-crop system.